


my friend was in a coma and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

by keeplovinanyway



Series: the beat goes on and on and on and on (Songfic series) [2]
Category: Phandom/The Fantastic Foursome (YouTube RPF)
Genre: Coma, Fear of Death, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-20
Updated: 2018-06-20
Packaged: 2019-05-26 02:34:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,148
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14990885
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/keeplovinanyway/pseuds/keeplovinanyway
Summary: Phil's friend has woken up from a coma, but for some reason all Phil feels is sadness.





	my friend was in a coma and all I got was this lousy t-shirt

**Author's Note:**

> This is a songfic, inspired by a German song called "Meine Freundin war im Koma und alles, was sie mir mitgebracht hat, war dieses lausige T-Shirt", which translates to "my friend was in a coma and all that she got me was this lousy t-shirt". It's a very pretty and a very sad song and I recommend listening to it [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XJoqRzVKPE). I put an English translation for you in the comments if you want to understand the lyrics. 
> 
> Thank you megia for beta-reading and giving me your opinions on it <3

He should be happy right now.

Phil’s friend was in a coma and is conscious again and Phil should be happy, shouldn’t he? He shouldn’t feel as… as open and raw and deeply sad and hurt as he feels.

But he does. He does feel that. He’s laying on his and Dan’s bed, curled up on the duvet. He’s stared at his hands for the better part of half an hour. They’re curled into their soft and white bed sheets, twisted into them so hard that he could see his knuckles turning white just a few minutes into laying here.

Phil breathes, in and out, in two heavy sighs that kind of hurt his lungs.

Everything hurts right now.

Phil hates himself a little bit. Or a lot, maybe. Maybe he hates himself a lot right now.

And he doesn’t understand why he feels so sad.

Marc had fallen into a coma after his car accident and Phil cried when it happened. He’d visited him in hospital, he’d stood there before his bed, Marc’s eyes unmoving and his body limp, none of that usual energy he carried with him present in his movements. Because, there were no movements – Marc was gone, somewhere dark and deep and scary.

_We don’t- know, we don’t. Know._ , Marc’s girlfriend had told him when he’d asked whether Marc would wake up again, and then Dan had walked over to her and hugged her awkwardly as Phil just stood there, kept standing there, looking at Marc’s unmoving form.

Months. It had been months, in which Phil was always slightly scared in the back of his mind. Months of a constant tension that made him hesitant to look at any text messages, jump whenever his phone rang.

Until-

_Marc woke up_ , Anna said, _he‘s awake since yesterday- I just wanted to let you know, it‘s so many people to call, but thank you for everything. Yeah, I’ll keep you updated, yeah, thank you._

Phil had cried happy tears when that happened, or broken tears maybe, the kind where it feels like something that’s been held up for a long time is finally able to be free, the kind where you got to relax but it still hurts, kind of.

Phil swallows and focuses his gaze on his thumb. There’s an area where he’d bitten at the skin by the nail. It’s a bit red and raw. It looks like it is hurting.

_Big mood_ , he hears Dan’s voice in his head.

He sort of wants to relax his hands, and he sort of wants to breathe in a way that feels free, but he doesn’t know how to either.

When Phil had visited Marc again, still in hospital, but for the first time in almost a year looking back at him again – when Phil had visited him, he’d listened to the nurse’s instructions and didn’t talk to Marc about all that has been going on in the time he was unconscious. They had methods for this, they said, Phil should just talk to Marc about stuff he remembered by himself, they said.

Phil had pulled a chair up next to Marc’s bed and they’d talked about uni and their board game nights and Stephen King, until Marc suddenly said _I literally don’t remember anything about it, it’s so weird._

_You don’t?,_ Phil asked after a moment. _Is it not like- like you hear, with- you know-_

_No, no light or anything_ , _or maybe I am just bad at almost dying, who knows_ , Marc said, and then he laughed a little.

Phil laughed too, despite his chest feeling really tight all of a sudden.

_So you got nothing for us about what to expect? Wow._ He said it like it’s a joke, because it was a joke. At least it should have been one, for sure.

Marc grinned. _Nah mate. We gotta all wait until it’s our turn, I guess._

Until we all die, he hadn’t said, but now Phil lies in a ball on his bed and counts his breaths, starting over and over again, and _until we all die_ is all he can think about.

_We all die_ , is what he thinks, one, two, three, out again. _We all die._

His throat aches like he is going to cry soon.

_We all die_.

He feels a tear escape the inner corner of his right eye, feels it roll down slowly over the bridge of his nose, just under his left eye and down into the crease where his face meets the mattress. The image of his hands is a little bit blurry now and he blinks, once, twice, three times.

_Until we all die_.

The thought is too much. Phil feels stuck on it and like it’s chipping away at him, one thinking it at a time, burrowing into him the way water makes holes into a stone. There’s no point at which there’s suddenly a hole in the stone, but Phil sort of feels like he has a point like that now, like someone’s punching him in the chest, and he heaves a sob and curls in on himself tighter as his breathing grows more erratic.

He knows he has to get up. He has to get up and find Dan, because that’s what he’s learned to do in situations like this.

It takes more effort than anything has done since he walked through the door of the hospital room where Marc lives. When he knew that Marc should be awake now, but his mind not letting go of that picture of him looking like he was… dead.

Despite how much it takes, Phil uncurls himself, tears continuously rolling down his face now. His hands shake violently and he remembers that this is why he had tangled them in theirbedsheets in the first place.

Just walking helps a little bit to calm him down. By the time he walks around the corner of the living room, to where Dan is sat on his PC, Phil feels mostly just deeply, deeply sad.

Dan looks at him and his face goes soft and concerned immediately.

“Phil,” he says. He puts his headphones down. The game keeps playing behind him.

“Maybe-”, Phil stops and clears his throat, “maybe you should hit pause, you’re going to get killed.”

Dan doesn’t hit pause and he doesn’t look away from Phil.

“Phil,” he says, again. He looks like he wants to ask what’s up. “Come cuddle,” he says instead, pronounced like it’s a question.

They walk to the sofa and Phil burrows his head into Dan’s shoulder. Dan holds him, close and warm and smelling like safety and warmth and _life_ , and Phil starts crying again. Dan holds him tighter and presses little kisses somewhere to his head. Phil can hear his own heart beating in his ears. He can’t really hear Dan’s right now, but he wants to and it scares him that he doesn’t.

“Don’t die,” Phil whimpers quietly, “please don’t die.”

He is so scared. He is so scared that Dan could die or he could die and that he doesn’t know what will happen after that. He has no idea and life just ends and there’s _nothing_ , there’s nothing perhaps, and they all die and go into this nothingness that maybe is a somethingness that no one knows about- and Phil doesn’t want to do that, he doesn’t want to _think_ about it because it is darker than anything he can handle.

“Don’t die,” he cries and he feels like he has for a while now, “don’t die, don’t die, don’t die.”

Maybe it’s not even words anymore, but he needs to keep saying them because it can’t happen, Dan can not die.

“Don’t die, please, don’t die.”

It takes him a while – he doesn’t know how long. He only knows that at some point, he feels Dan’s hands on his back again and hears his voice, low and close and repetitive.

“I won’t die,” he says. He says it over and over again, as an answer whenever Phil hears himself cry out his plea.

“I won’t die.”

_But you will_ , Phil wants to say, _and there’s no light._

There comes a point where there’s quiet. Phil doesn’t cry anymore and Dan doesn’t reassure him, he just holds him to his chest.

“Phil.” Dan’s voice is so low and soft. Phil swallows.

“Yeah?”

“What- has happened?”

Phil focuses on his hands again, curled into each other. They are pillowed onto Dan’s chest now, on top of that fuzzy black jumper. He breathes in and out and Dan strokes a steady hand down his back.

“Um,” he starts and stops again when he realizes he doesn’t quite know what to say.

Dan presses a kiss to his hair and lingers, and Phil sighs.

“I am just so sad,” he whispers. It is true, right now he is just so, so sad.

“Why are you sad?”

“Because dying isn’t easy,” is the first thing that comes to his mind.

Dan is silent for a moment.

“It’s not supposed to be, is it?”

Phil knows he doesn’t have to explain to Dan that death in general scares him. They’ve not talked about it very often, but their discussion have been intense enough that he knows Dan wouldn’t have forgotten. But it doesn’t feel general right now, it feels very current and relevant.

Dan speaks again when Phil doesn’t. “Is this because you saw Marc today?”

Phil nods.

“But he is okay, you said, right?” There is a slight panic to his voice that makes Phil respond immediately.

“Oh god, yes, yeah. He is doing fine. Which is also- which is also why this is shitty of me.” Phil mumbles the last bit into Dan’s jumper.

“Mate, you’re gonna have to be a bit more specific than that.”

It could be a harsh comment, but Phil can hear Dan’s smile in his voice when he says that. He sighs.

“I don’t know how to explain it. It’s- well. With Marc today, he told me that he doesn’t remember anything. From when he was in the coma.”

Dan stays silent. He probably can hear Phil thinking, he always says he can.

“Not anything, you know. Like. Nothing about a light or a tunnel or anything. He said there was just – nothing.”

He can feel Dan nod against his head.

“But you wanted him to?”

“Yeah,” Phil whispers. “I’d sort of- like, I know I don’t have the right, and I am so happy he is awake, but I’d sort of hoped-”

“To hear something that makes dying sound a bit less like the shitshow it actually is?”

Phil feels his cheeks burn in embarrassment. He nods.

Dan cards his fingers through Phil’s hair.

“Oh Phil. That is- that is okay. You’re allowed to feel that.”

It’s a therapy thing. Dan has pulled that one out for a couple years now, whenever he thought Phil was trying to push away something he felt. Phil hates it a bit, because most of the time, he doesn’t _want_ to be someone who feels something like that.

“I should be happy for him, and not expect anything, and it’s such a dumb fear anyway-”

“Stop,” Dan interrupts, “stop. We don’t call any feelings dumb in this household, your own rule.”

That one is his own rule, unfortunately.

Dan keeps talking.

“And you can feel sad about this. I’m sad all the time and you don’t tell me it’s wrong, do you. Some things are just fucking awful and you have to feel sad about how shitty they are.”

Somehow, that makes Phil’s eyes water again a bit. He doesn’t know how to say that he’d just hoped for a more optimistic end. He doesn’t know how to say _I wish he’d brought back some light from the end of the tunnel_.

“We all die at some point,” Dan says, like he knows what Phil had been repeating over and over in his head. “Everything ends. I use nihilism to cope with that, but you are sad and I honestly think that’s maybe a bit more healthy even. You should be sad about things that are sad.”

_We all die_ , Phil thinks. It is sad and it makes his heart ache and he pushes his face up wards and into the soft skin of Dan’s neck. _We all die and there’s nothing good about it._

Dan moves his hand to cradle the back of his head and tips his own head against Phil’s head.

“I’ve got you,” he says, quietly, as if it’s a secret.

Phil doesn’t ever want to lose him.

_We all die,_ Phil thinks, and then he just holds on to this moment, because that’s all he can do, really. Just live this life he has, as long as he has it.

“I’ve got you,” Dan whispers again.

And somehow, that’s enough.

**Author's Note:**

> [Kudos] and [Comments] are greatly appreciated. <3 If you'd like to leave constructive criticism, you are welcome to message me on [tumblr](heartfeltfangirl.tumblr.com)!
> 
> The link to the song this fic was inspired by is [here](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9XJoqRzVKPE).
> 
> Reblog this fic on tumblr [here](https://heartfeltfangirl.tumblr.com/post/175083017708/my-friend-was-in-a-coma-and-all-i-got-was-this)!


End file.
